Monday, July 02, 2012

We had encountered a man swimming near the shore of the
estuary and we asked him if it’s possible to swim from here to the other
(beautifully sandy) shore.

No! Medusas! La corriente!

So maybe there are jellyfish because of the current or maybe
there are dangerous currents and jellyfish, in any case, I lose interest in
attempting the great swim across the wide body of water.

Besides, it’s still rather cool. They say yet again that it
will rain all day Sunday, but so far, the only great rains we’ve experienced
during our entire trip were back on our first day in Sorede. Ed looks up and
points to blue breaks between clouds. It wont rain, he says confidently. (He has
some kind of a rapport with the weather gods, because most often he is correct
in his predictions, even though this time, I think he is mistaken. Weather.com
is absolutely certain. Rain. All day.)

At breakfast we hear the familiar flute. What now? Marco
tells us – just a little Basque music again.

I ask, rather incredulously – the celebration continues?

Rather timidly he answers – yes, but not too much.

I go out on the square and see a dozen or so costumed people
chasing mostly young ones and hitting them with a foam stick.

No kidding. The kids seem unfazed. I suppose you get used to
puppets chasing you with sticks if that’s what happens year in and year out on
the village square.

And the band plays on...

So I have to ask and I really want Marco to look me in the
eye for this one. After three nights of music, the kind that they can surely
hear in Bormeo and maybe even Bilbao, let alone in the rooms of our little hotel
just off the square, are they done celebrating, or will there be more?

Just one more night. But it’s gentler. You’ll see. And it
will end earlier. Really. Though after, there will be fireworks.

If you are the type that loves an immersion in local custom,
I surely have timed this visit exceptionally well for that. If you are the type that
loves quiet, well, there always the hill walks.

And we do one again.

setting out

Not really into the hills, but along
the undulating countryside at this side of the estuary. Torturing ourselves (or mostly Ed) with
vistas onto the body of water that we cannot cross.

Now, I know these posts have been on the long side. Like a
Ginsu knife commercial, I tell Ed. You think it’s a one minute read and hours
(it seems) later you kick yourself for having wasted time looking at photos of
Mundaka, of all places. (Ed has been playing Ginsu commercials on youtube – the
analogy seems apt.) But the time of terribly long posts is rapidly spinning to
a close. Indeed, after this upload, I’m going to have to concentrate not on
Ocean, but on getting us back to Bilbao, Barcelona, Paris, Detroit and finally
Madison – all in the space of two days. We’re back at the farmhouse late
Wednesday – and so posting will have to be of the kind that’s on the run. With possible gaps and intermissions.

I’ll be with few words today, too. The Sunday walk was
beautiful – the clouds kicked Weather.com in the butt, retreating inland with a
laugh. The hike took many, many hours (we went as far as the third train stop to the north of us -- San Kristobal), but we did have two pauses – one to stare at
boats bobbing by the shore...

.... and the second – at a table with a view toward the
mountains and hills. At that second pause we had what is so typical here, that
I can’t believe we hadn’t had it thus far – a tortilla with patatas – a sort of
omelet with potatoes. You see it at every pintxos bar.

So, a photo hike, with few words:

Q: how many sheep in this picture?

A: Three!

for the goats among you

another goat

old Basque farmhouse

...has this in the entryway

view during snack break

the wave movement near Mundaka is breathtakingly beautiful (tiny dot in bottom right corner is a man wading in the shallow parts)

evening on Mundaka beach

In the many hours of our walk, Ed and I drive each other to
tears in our attempts to get the iPhone translator to recognize his
pronunciations.

Go ahead, say it! It never works! I say it, it works. He
says it. It does not.

Quit with the ‘ey’ sound, I tell him. It’s ‘eh’! We explode with laughter as he tries
again and again, hating it that I get it each time, while he fails. (Any
European will have an easier time with pronunciations; I claim no great skill
over and beyond what my birth place has handed to me.)

ready to throw the iPhone into the fields

In the evening, we have trouble with dinner. We have a 10 o’clock
reservation at the Casino (good value!) but when we come there, it’s clear that
on the Sunday after San Pedro’s,
they want to go home early. So we leave without eating.

And there’s a reason why suddenly no one cares about food,
about music on the square (the playing did end early...very early). It’s the
night of the final game of the Euro 2012 (soccer championships). Spain against
Italy. On every screen at every bar in town.

Finally, at the small place we ate the second night (Fonda), we find
an agreeable atmosphere. We eat, Spain wins. There. Could we have a better
ending?

the great red tomatoes of Spain

And so the feast of San Pedro finally comes to an end, we leave tomorrow
and Mundaka returns to the more prosaic routines, except I don’t know what those
are because the four days we were here were anything but prosaic or commonplace.

Ah, but the fireworks: aren’t there fireworks? Indeed. Two
men are out on the pier and they are fiddling with something on the ground. Getting ready for the fireworks that will close
down the (four day!) celebrations
of San Pedro. There are a couple of loud bangs, then silence. The people around
the harbor, fresh off the victory in soccer, clamor for more. Here’s more: one
of the men lights something on the ground and then runs off. We have less than a minute of
magic in the sky and then it’s over.

Bang, bang, bang!
... done.

On Monday we may get up for a swim across the estuary. You
can only attempt this at low tide and low tide comes early in the morning. Or
not. Maybe we’ll cavort along the Atlantic before retreating to Bilbao. Most
certainly we’ll be in Bilbao for the night. Unless the medusa gets us!